Sodmongol arrested at
the Beijing Capital
International Airport on
his way to attend a
United Nations
conference.

BEIJING, April
26 (Reuters) - An ethnic Mongolian
activist has vanished after Chinese
authorities prevented him from
attending a United Nations forum on
indigenous peoples in New York
earlier this month, according to a
rights group.

The U.S.-based Southern Mongolian
Human Rights Information Centre said
that Sodmongol, who like many ethnic
Mongolians in China goes by only one
name, was arrested at Beijing's
airport on April 18, and that his
whereabouts remain unknown.

He had been invited to attend a
session of the United Nations
Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues
at U.N. headquarters in New York,
the group said in an emailed
statement.

Police subsequently raided his house
in Chaoyang, in the northeastern
province of Liaoning, confiscating
computers, mobile phones and
documents, the group said.

Sodmongol has been in trouble with
the government before, it added, for
his involvement with Mongolian
language Internet groups which
discussed sensitive topics.

"As gathering places of ethnic
Mongolian intellectuals and
students, these Internet sites have
been very active in advocating the
promotion and protection of ethnic
Mongolian peoples' rights to
practice their culture, language and
tradition," the group said.

Decades of migration by the dominant
Han Chinese have made Mongolians a
minority in their former lands
within the People's Republic of
China. They officially comprise less
than 20 percent of the almost 24
million people in Inner Mongolia,
and are even scarcer in other
northeastern provinces.

Inner Mongolia is supposed to have a
high degree of autonomy, as are
Tibet and Xinjiang in the far west.
But Beijing keeps a tight rein on
the region, fearing ethnic unrest in
strategic border areas.

Separately, police have detained
Tibetan scholar Shogdung after he
sent an open letter of solidarity to
Tibetan earthquake victims in
Qinghai province and criticised
relief efforts, said website High
Peaks Pure Earth (www.highpeakspureearth.com),
which monitors Tibetan-language web
postings.